Neuroscience
You've probably read the news story which has received a good deal of press over the past day about a psychological investigation into language-patterning abilities in rats. The full-text reprint of this paper is available at this time on the website of the American Psychological Association, along with the original press release. The link for the full-text article is: http://www.apa.org/releases/speech_article.pdf
Date: January 9, 2005
Contact: Public Affairs Office
American Psychological Association (APA)
(202) 336-5700
RATS CAN TELL TWO LANGUAGES APART FROM SPEECH CUES, SHARING AN ABILITY WITH HUMANS AND MONKEYS
They’re the third type of mammal shown to have this skill
WASHINGTON — Mammals other than humans can distinguish between different speech patterns. Neuroscientists in Barcelona report that rats, like humans (newborn and adult) and Tamarin monkeys, can extract regular patterns in language from speech (prosodic) cues. The report appears in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
This study of 16 rats per each of four conditions showed that they were able to pick up enough cues from the rhythm and intonation of human speech to tell spoken Dutch from spoken Japanese. After the researchers trained rats to press a lever when hearing a synthesized five-second sentence in Dutch or Japanese, they tested the rats’ response to the alternative language. Rats rewarded for responding to Japanese did not respond to Dutch and vice versa. They pressed the lever only for the language to which they’d been exposed. What’s more, the rats generalized the ability to differentiate to new Dutch and new Japanese sentences they had not heard before.
[ ... Read the full press release ... ]
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Neuroscience
Rats in the News
You've probably read the news story which has received a good deal of press over the past day about a psychological investigation into language-patterning abilities in rats. The full-text reprint of this paper is available at this time on the website of the American Psychological Association, along with the original press release. The link for the full-text article is: http://www.apa.org/releases/speech_article.pdf
Date: January 9, 2005
Contact: Public Affairs Office
American Psychological Association (APA)
(202) 336-5700
RATS CAN TELL TWO LANGUAGES APART FROM SPEECH CUES, SHARING AN ABILITY WITH HUMANS AND MONKEYS
They’re the third type of mammal shown to have this skill
WASHINGTON — Mammals other than humans can distinguish between different speech patterns. Neuroscientists in Barcelona report that rats, like humans (newborn and adult) and Tamarin monkeys, can extract regular patterns in language from speech (prosodic) cues. The report appears in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
This study of 16 rats per each of four conditions showed that they were able to pick up enough cues from the rhythm and intonation of human speech to tell spoken Dutch from spoken Japanese. After the researchers trained rats to press a lever when hearing a synthesized five-second sentence in Dutch or Japanese, they tested the rats’ response to the alternative language. Rats rewarded for responding to Japanese did not respond to Dutch and vice versa. They pressed the lever only for the language to which they’d been exposed. What’s more, the rats generalized the ability to differentiate to new Dutch and new Japanese sentences they had not heard before.
[ ... Read the full press release ... ]
- Watching New Memories Form
Biologically-speaking, new memories are based on changes to synapses – the gaps across which neurons communicate with each other. Now scientists in America say they have found a way to witness these synaptic changes right after they've happened,...
- Phew! How Rats Sigh When They're Relieved
If you ever hear a rat sigh, don’t worry it’s not because they’re getting impatient, rather it’s because they’re relieved, a behaviour that probably evolved as a safety signal to other rats. That’s according to Stefan Soltysik and Piotr Jelen...
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LiveScience.com - Fish Explores Land with Robotic Device Here's the question. What happens if you raise the fish in this environment from birth -- does it learn to behave differently than a fish in their usual environments? Suppose we used a rat instead...
- Memory Divided
The new October issue of the American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology includes several short articles of interest to neuroscience readers. One of these articles is about one researcher's career of researching memory systems....
- (laughing) Rats In The News
Did you know that rats laugh? Jaak Panksepp, neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University, talks about how rats actually laugh. Science News Online quotes him as saying "but you have to know the rat." And in this week's Science Times, Natalie...